Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I can’t decide whether it’s totally unbelievable or completely believable that Tyrese Haliburton hit another game-winner.
In today’s SI:AM:
🤯 More Haliburton heroics
🏈 Rodgers finally Pittsburgh-bound
⭐ MLB All-Star picks
No lead is safe against the Indiana Pacers.
The Pacers have made a habit out of erasing late deficits in these playoffs, and they did it again in Game 1 of the NBA Finals last night against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sank a pair of free throws with 2:52 left to play to extend OKC’s lead to 108–99. None of the 182 teams who had previously trailed by at least nine points in the final three minutes of a Finals game (since 1971) had ever come back to win, according to ESPN. But the Pacers have proven over and over again that they aren’t like most teams.
Everything went Indiana’s way from there on out. The Pacers clamped down defensively, hit the boards hard and knocked down their shots to put themselves in position for one final shot to win the game. Of course they were going to have Tyrese Haliburton take it.
Haliburton is on a clutch run the likes of which we’ve never seen before. He’s already hit a game-winner in Game 5 of Indiana’s first-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, another in Game 2 of the second round against the Cleveland Cavaliers and a game-tying shot in Game 1 of the conference finals against the New York Knicks. So when he pulled up from 21 feet in the waning seconds of Thursday’s game, it felt almost inevitable that the shot would go in.
https://x.com/espn/status/1930824185678352741
Haliburton has now made four shots to tie or take the lead in the final five seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime in this postseason alone. That’s more than any player on record. (The NBA began tracking play-by-play statistics in the 1996–97 season.)
Haliburton’s clutch shooting is a major reason why the Pacers have now overcome a 15-point deficit five times this postseason, a feat no other team has accomplished in the play-by-play era. In fact Indiana is now 5–3 this postseason when it falls behind by at least 15 points.
Haliburton was hardly dominant in Game 1, scoring 14 points on 6-of-13 shooting. And the Pacers didn’t play their best game—at least not offensively. They turned the ball over 25 times, compared to just seven for the Thunder. No team in NBA history had ever before won a playoff game with a turnover margin that lopsided.
So how did the Pacers win? Part of it is how they settled down after halftime, committing just five turnovers after coughing it up 20 times in the first half. A bigger part of it was the Thunder’s inability to capitalize on Indiana’s sloppiness, scoring just 11 points off turnovers. The Pacers also completely dominated on the boards, out-rebounding the Thunder 56–39. Indiana gifted OKC plenty of possessions with all the turnovers, but it clawed back those possessions by owning the boards.
Most importantly, the Pacers flexed their muscles defensively. Gilgeous-Alexander was predictably excellent for the Thunder (38 points on 14-of-30 shooting), but Indiana held OKC’s next two top scoring threats—Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren—to a combined 23 points on 8-of-28 shooting. And while SGA did stuff the stat sheet, the Pacers contained him when it mattered most. Haliburton wouldn’t have had an opportunity to win the game if not for two clutch defensive plays on Gilgeous-Alexander in the final moments. First, with just over a minute to play, Pascal Siakam denied SGA at the rim with a strong block. Then, on the possession immediately before Haliburton’s winner, Andrew Nembhard stood tall one-on-one against SGA and forced him to settle for a 15-foot fadeaway that went begging.
The Pacers entered the series as heavy underdogs against a historically great Thunder team, and OKC should still be favored even after losing Game 1. But if the Pacers have proven one thing during these playoffs it’s that it would be foolish to ever count them out.
… things I saw last night:
5. The beautiful chaos of this botched field goal attempt in the CFL.
4. Bennedict Mathurin’s vicious block on Jalen Williams.
3. Andrew Nembhard’s clutch step-back three in the closing minutes of Game 1.
2. The inexplicable finish to the Rays–Rangers game. Tampa Bay won in walk-off fashion after a defensive miscue allowed two runs to score on a routine grounder to second.
1. This collection of calls of Tyrese Haliburton’s game-winner. My favorite is either the Icelandic announcer who broke out the Mike Breen “Bang!” or the completely dejected Thunder home radio call.